The IFA Premiership–formerly the Irish
Premier League, and before that the Irish Football
League–and still known in popular parlance simply as the
Irish League, is the national football league in Northern
Ireland, and was historically the league for the whole of Ireland. It should not be
confused with the League of Ireland, which is the
football league for the Republic of Ireland. At the end of
the season, the champion club is presented with the Gibson Cup - on
2 May 2009 it was awarded to Glentoran, the current holders.

History

The Irish Football League was originally formed as the football
league for all of Ireland in
1890 (although initially all of its member clubs were in fact based
in what would become Northern Ireland). It became the league for Northern
Ireland in 1921 after partition, with a separate league
and association (the Football Association of the Irish Free State -
now called the Football Association of
Ireland) - being formed for the Irish Free State (now the Republic of
Ireland) in the south and west.

In its first season, seven of the eight teams came from Belfast, and the league - and
Irish football - continued to be dominated by Belfast clubs for
many years. In 1892, Derry Olympic became the second
non-Belfast side, but only lasted for one season. In 1900, Derry
Celtic joined the league and, in 1901, a second Derry team, St
Columb's Court, was added. St Columb's Court lasted just one
season, before being replaced by the league's first Dublin team, Bohemians, in 1903.
Another Dublin side, Shelbourne, was added in 1904. In 1911
Glenavon, from
the County
Armagh town of Lurgan
replaced Bohemians, who resigned from the league, but were
re-admitted in 1912. During 1912 there were three Dublin sides,
with the addition of Tritonville, but, like Derry Olympic and St
Columb's Court before them, they lasted just one season. Derry
Celtic also dropped out in 1913, so that when the Irish League
split in 1921, Glenavon was the only non-Belfast team left.

During the 1920s, however, the league expanded and soon achieved
a wide geographic spread across Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, it
was not until 1952 that a team from outside Belfast (Glenavon)
was crowned champions. Derry City, now of the League of
Ireland, played in the Irish League from 1929 until 1972 but
eventually resigned during the Troubles after the League voted narrowly to
continue a ban on their home ground imposed by the security forces,
even after the security forces had lifted it.

From 1995-96 until 2002-03, the League was split into two
divisions: the Premier Division and First Division. Since 2003,
there has been a single division, albeit with relegation to
intermediate leagues below.

In 2003, the Irish Football Association
took direct charge of Northern Ireland's national league with the
creation of the Irish Premier League (IPL). The Irish Football
League retained a separate existence, but controlling only two
feeder leagues: the First Division and Second Division. In 2004,
the IFA took over control of the remaining IFL divisions and
renamed them as the IFA Intermediate League First
Division and Second Division, effectively winding up the Irish
Football League after 114 years.

In 2008, the Irish League was re-organised again (see
2008 Reorganisation below) and re-named as the
Irish Premiership. Teams were invited to apply for membership of
the new league, which was reduced to 12 clubs, and places were
awarded on the basis of a complicated points system combined with a
"domestic licence" scheme.

Glentoran are the current champions,
finishing one point ahead of Linfield in the 2008/09 final
standings, and winning the IFA Premiership title for the 23rd time
in their history, and the first time since 2005. Goals from Dean
Fitzgerald, Kyle Neill and Mattie Burrows secured a 3-1 victory for
Glentoran, on a tense final day of the league season, against Cliftonville at the Oval on 2 May 2009. On
the same day, runners-up Linfield beat Crusaders 5-0 but the result turned out
to be academic.

League
format

Each team plays each other three times, making a total of 33
fixtures per team before the "split", when the top six teams play
each other for a fourth time to settle the championship and
European qualification issues, and the bottom six teams play each
other to settle relegation issues. This makes a total of 38
fixtures. The League campaign begins in August and continues until
the first Saturday in May. Most fixtures are played on Saturday
afternoons, with occasional fixtures on Friday evenings, and some
mid-week games, usually on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings.
Traditionally, there are Bank Holiday afternoon
fixtures on Boxing
Day, New Year’s Day and Easter Tuesday.

Three points are awarded for a win, and one point for a draw.
The team with the most points at the end of the season wins the
championship. If two teams finish level on points, goal difference
is used to separate them. If teams are still level on goal
difference, then the team with the most goals scored is placed
highest. Points can be deducted for breaches of rules: for example,
fielding an ineligible player.

The League champions qualify to represent Northern
Ireland in the following season’s Champions League, and the
runners-up and third-placed teams qualify for the new Europa League. If the Europa League place that is reserved for
the Irish Cup winners
(or runners-up, in the event that the Cup winners have also won the
League championship) is taken by the team in second or third place,
then the fourth-placed team is entered into the Europa League. In order to compete in any
of these European competitions, however, clubs must possess a UEFA
licence. In the event that a team qualifies without such a licence,
lower-placed teams may take their place.

The two highest-placed teams in the Premiership also qualify
automatically for the next season’s all-Ireland Setanta
Cup. The third- and fourth-placed teams may also qualify if
either or both of the winners (or runners-up, in the event that the
Irish Cup winners have also finished first or second) of the Irish Cup and League Cup have qualified via the League.
(The League Cup
runners-up cannot qualify.)

The bottom-placed team is relegated to the IFA
Championship and the second-bottom-placed team must take part
in a two-legged play-off match against the second-placed team in
the Championship, and is relegated if it loses. (In the event that
the Championship winners do not possess a domestic licence, there
is no automatic relegation and, instead, the bottom-placed team
takes part in the play-off against the second-placed Championship
team. In the event that neither the Championship winners nor
runners-up has a domestic licence, there is no relegation.)

The twelve Premiership teams also compete for the Irish League Cup: the second-most important
cup competition after the Irish Cup.

2008
reorganisation

For the 2008/09 season, the League system for Northern Ireland
was re-organised. It was renamed as the IFA
Premiership, and reduced to twelve teams, included on the
basis not only of their performance in the 2007/08 season, but in
the previous two seasons, and other off-the-field criteria as
follows. Each applicant club was assessed by an independent panel
and awarded points against the following criteria:

- Sporting (maximum 450 points) - based on league
placings, Irish Cup, League Cup and European performances in
2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08; with points also awarded for running
youth teams, women's teams and community development
programmes.

History and
trivia

The first Irish League champions were Linfield, and the first
runners-up were Ulster. After the first season, the league
expanded to ten clubs, but shrank after only one season to six
clubs for the 1892-93 season. Only four clubs competed in 1892-93
and 1893-94, then six clubs for the following season, until a
membership of eight was achieved for the 1901-02 season. With the
exception of one season (1912-13) in which there were ten clubs,
membership stayed at eight until the southern clubs resigned in
1920, anticipating the formation of the separate League of
Ireland in what would become the Irish Free State. (The League was
suspended from 1915 to 1919 because of the First World War.) Only five and six clubs
competed in 1920-21 and from 1921-23 respectively, but expansion
began with the admission of four new clubs in 1923, another two in
1924 and a further two in 1927, giving a membership of fourteen
from 1927 until the League was suspended in 1940 because of the Second World War. When the League resumed
in 1947 it was reduced to twelve clubs, and stayed at this number
until 1983 when membership was increased to fourteen. In 1990, a
further two clubs brought the membership to sixteen, and the League
was divided into two divisions (the Premier and First Divisions) of
eight in 1995, with promotion and relegation between the two. In
1996 the results from the Premier Division and the First Division
started to be featured on the Press Association vidiprinter. In
1997, membership increased again to eighteen, with ten in the
Premier Division and eight in the First Division. Between 1999 and
2003, the League had a record twenty clubs in membership. From 1999
to 2002, ten clubs each competed in the Premier and First Divisions
and in 2002-03 there were twelve in the Premier Division and eight
in the First Division. In 2003, with the creation of the Irish
Premier League, the senior league was reduced to a single division
of sixteen clubs, although for the first time with relegation to,
and promotion from, a league below (a rump Irish Football League in
2003-04 and subsequently the IFA
Intermediate League). In 2008, with the creation of the IFA
Premiership, the league was reduced to twelve.

Four clubs – Cliftonville, Glentoran, Linfield
and Lisburn Distillery – have retained
membership of the League since its inception in 1890: 118 years and
107 seasons (due to eleven suspended seasons). All the League
members from 1890 up to and including the 2009-10 season (Irish
Football League 1890-2003, Irish Premier League 2003-08, IFA
Premiership 2008 to present) are as follows (current members shown
in bold):

Before goal
difference was introduced, if the top two teams finished the
season with the same number of points, the championship title was
decided by a play-off. Nine such championship play-offs took place
over the years as follow:

On one occasion – 1905/06 – the championship title was shared
after Cliftonville and Distillery could not be separated after two
play-off matches.

Linfield was the first team to win the
championship on goal difference in 1992-93, when they finished
level on 66 points each with Crusaders, but eight goals better with a
+34 goal difference to Crusaders' +26.

From 1890 to 1921, when the Irish League was an all-Ireland
competition, no southern clubs (from what would become the Irish Free
State and later the Republic of Ireland) ever won the
championship. During this period, three southern clubs participated
in the League: Bohemians, Shelbourne and Tritonville. The
highest place achieved by any of these clubs was second, by Shelbourne in 1906-07.

No club from outside Belfast won the League championship until Glenavon
took it to Co. Armagh in 1951-52. In 1957-58, Ards became
the first team from Co. Down to win the League, and in 1964-65,
Derry City were the first Co. Londonderry team to do so. Of the 106
championships, the title has only been taken out of Belfast on ten occasions. The
most successful provincial club is Portadown, with four
championships.

The longest gap between Irish League championships was 77
seasons (excluding the 11 suspended seasons) between Cliftonville’s wins in 1909-10 and
1997-98.

The record for consecutive titles is six, held jointly by Belfast Celtic (1935-40 and 1947-48) and Linfield
(1981-87).

Historically, with relatively few league fixtures each season,
the Irish League organised a number of other competitions for its
members. While some of these enjoyed considerable prestige over the
years, they have been phased out over recent seasons due to fixture
congestion caused by the expansion of the league and reduced
spectator interest. These competitions were: the City Cup; the Gold Cup; the Ulster Cup and the Irish League Floodlit
Cup.

In addition, clubs still compete in their respective regional
cup competitions: the County Antrim Shield (for clubs
within the jurisdiction of the North-East Ulster F.A. (also known
as the County Antrim & District F.A.); the Mid-Ulster Cup
(for clubs within the jurisdiction of the Mid-Ulster F.A.); and the
North-West Senior Cup (for clubs within the jurisdiction of the
North-Western F.A.).